Fracking doesn't include the risks of war

By BILL VAN SLYKE, Commentary

Published 11:27 pm, Tuesday, February 19, 2013

"It's frack or Iraq," my brother insisted, as we debated America's energy policy. And for a moment, the choice seemed that simple. But no sloganeering or headline can distill the truth about hydraulic fracturing, because, like virtually everything in life, it presents potential reward and risk.

Any extraction of fossil fuel is going to involve some environmental impact and risk. But while there may indeed be some risks involved in fracking for natural gas in New York, to honestly assess these risks, we must weigh them against the risks of continuing our dependence on imported oil.

We were attacked on Sept. 11th in large part because our presence in the Middle East is despised by several thousand very unreasonable people, and unwelcomed by millions of otherwise reasonable people who silently condone antipathy toward the U.S. Putting aside the fractional impact of non-energy interests in the region, we maintain a presence in the Middle East primarily to protect our "national interest," which in the case of the Arab world means oil. We're not over there to protect the poppy and pistachio trades.

As long as we rely on oil, we must protect its supply.

Oil is in every sense the blood of our nation. We cannot live long without it, now and for decades to come, and we are shedding real blood to maintain access to it.

If you clear away the weeds of partisan intrigue concerning our recent foreign wars, you will see that our soldiers are fighting and dying in the Middle East primarily because the lives and livelihoods of every American rely on our oil supply.

We have tolerated the deaths of more than 4,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in wars linked to that national interest. Even the homeland security and counterterrorism interests associated with these wars are inseparable from our energy interests.

Closer to home, how many oil-related disasters like the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez will we tolerate?

They will happen again, and again. There are nearly 4,000 active wells in the Gulf of Mexico today, and thousands more inactive. Each one carries a risk.

Tally it all up: Thousands of dead American soldiers; thousands more Americans killed in terrorist attacks on the homeland; despoliation of our natural resources; and ever-increasing energy costs for all of us with no offsetting economic benefit. These are the risks of oil dependency, and we tolerate them.

Yet we cringe and waffle and debate and study and politicize and delay our acceptance of the far lower, highly localized risks associated with hydofracking, and at the same time deny ourselves the immense potential positive economic and national security impacts of fracking.

It seems so perfectly mad when viewed through the lens of comparative risk. But that's people, I guess.

Case in point: Just last week a car ahead of me had two bumper stickers on it. One read "Trillion dollar wars. Who needs health care?" Insinuating, obviously, that we're wasting dollars on unnecessary wars, dollars that could be better spent elsewhere.

The other sticker read: "No Fracking Way."

A good American, I thought. He wants it both ways.

Sure, I want energy to power my home, office and car that is generated without risk of war or pollution. Who doesn't? But we're not there yet. Not even close. There are not, and for the foreseeable future there will not be, nearly enough wind turbines, solar panels and other non-petroleum alternatives to meet current or forecasted energy demand. So as we transition to renewable and cleaner technologies — a process that will take decades — let's not be so foolish as to ignore the value of comparatively safer resources and strategies like domestic fracking.

Rarely has there been a better example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. There is a huge reserve of energy, of lifeblood, right under our feet, and it is immediately accessible by methods that carry known and controlled levels of comparatively low risk. What are we waiting for?

But perhaps our hesitancy isn't such a mystery. Banning fracking carries the greatest risk for the young Americans deployed to protect our oil interests abroad. Allowing fracking, on the other hand, carries actual risk for you and me.

And that's when we get to the root question of our energy dilemma: how many more young soldiers are we willing to sacrifice to avoid our share of the risk?

Frack or Iraq? For me the choice is morally self-evident. In the perpetual absence of a perfect solution, I choose to frack.